Fabulist
by whipplefilter
Summary: Sheriff always figured if there'd be another soul on earth who knew him like this, it'd be a woman. But perhaps that time has passed. [AKA what is was like when Doc first came to Radiator Springs, and what lies he told about his past.]


The way he tells it the first time, he's from down South, and there's no more to tell. He acts like he doesn't want to be out West, but has no other choice. Witness protection, maybe? Sheriff thinks.

What's your name, stranger? he asks. As the sheriff, it's his business to ask. The stranger doesn't think so.

–

They call him Doc. He's standoffish at first–"grumpy" according to Mater, worse according to Ramone–and it's a lie to say he's come from the South, directly. From the sound of it, he's been bouncing across the country for years, never staying long enough to change his plate, put down roots. Lizzie wants to run him out of town like they'd do in the old days, but Flo determines that the thing to do is to hurry up and wait for him to leave under his own power. He doesn't want them anyway.

The thing is, this road needs him.

You're a doctor, right? Fillmore asks once, one day when his only previous interaction with the stranger was to disagree with him politically (and in any case, Fillmore mistrusts doctors).

He knows his way around a shop, replies the stranger.

Turns out "Doc" can replace a head gasket like no one's business, and soon enough half the county has an appointment set up in Radiator Springs. Some of them pilgrimage from afar–but Phoenix is further. For them, Radiator Springs seems doable. Mater has more business than he's had his whole life. Guido and Luigi hit benchmarks they haven't seen in a decade.

Doc breathes a little life back into town. Not a lot, not enough (it's never enough)–but enough to get them friendly.

Sheriff suspects Doc had always meant to leave them. He'd make a little cash, and then the clients ran dry he'd move on. But he never leaves.

One night, moon bright overhead but clouds moving quickly out of the south–dark and storm-heavy, blotting out the stars like a coma–he and Doc get to talking about old times.

Down South, Doc explains, he'd had a little garage. Best dang one in the Carolinas. He'd get these wannabe racers sometimes, blustering at his door all done up flashy paint even know they don't know their head from their engine block. Thinking they're fabulous when they ain't nothing at all.

Doc and Sheriff have a good laugh about that.

–

Had he ever done any foolin' around?

Sheriff can't rightly remember how it came up. Doc's been joining him on his night watches lately, and they've talked about all manner of things. Sheriff's lived in Radiator Springs for twenty years, and of everyone it's Doc who knows his secrets. Doc knows things about New York–things Sheriff's never told another soul. Not even his buddies from the Academy. Not even his buddies from New York. Sad, unrepeatable things. (Almost unrepeatable, Sheriff amends. Doc, he felt, he could tell.)

The point is, he's given Doc his soul laid bare, and that's not a done thing where men are concerned. At least not where Sheriff's from; and not, he imagines, where Doc is from. Sheriff always figured if there'd be another soul on earth who knew him like this, it'd be a woman. But perhaps that time has passed.

Doc mumbles a tale about a lady named Tea that he'd kissed and joked and fondled about with. Sounds like a lie, though–and Sheriff prides himself on knowing what's a lie. There's no love in his voice when he tells of Tea. At least, not until he mentions Louise.

Louise had eyes for some hotshot racer. But you know racers, Doc says. He rolls his eyes.

Never rushin' in the right direction.

–

Sally dubs them Law and Order, ups the ante on sassy comebacks higher than the town's ever seen it. She falls in love with the town faster than anyone–faster even than Stanely, maybe, back when there weren't any town at all, and only a dream. This makes Lizzie proud to tears, and she makes no secret about loving Sally the most. (Lizzie makes Red cry once, yelling at him about it, until Sheriff is able to explain it all to him. But Lizzie's memory starts to go soon after, and these days Sheriff's not certain she rightly remembers who Sally is half the time.)

By this point, Doc and Sheriff have shared so many stories they've just about run out. They know each other to the last nut. Their memories are a bridge between them, and on that bridge lives trust.

–

When Lightning McQueen roars into town, he breaks more than the road.

DID YOU KNOW DOC IS A FAMOUS RACECAR? he shouts. DID YOU KNOW–

–

Well, did you?

–

And it turns out it ain't even a lie.

–

They don't talk much on their way out West. But in Los Angeles, after the race, Doc all done up in his race day best–the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, as they used to say–Doc fixes him with a look in his eye that's so sorry, that knows he has made an error that cannot be undone, that expects that the time has come, finally, to leave.

California needs him, maybe. Or Alaska. Saskatoon.

Doc knows Sheriff's whole heart, and it turns out he's given nothing of his. He doesn't deserve to stay. That's what that look in his eye is saying, in any case.

Sheriff doesn't believe that, though. He believes in Louise, and the little garage, and the swampy Carolinas and of course, of course–in racecars who think they're anything at all.

In strangers who think they ain't.

"Hey, stranger," says Sheriff, kindly. "Wanna join me for a quart?"

–

Sheriff never asks. Never accuses. He lets Doc's stories stand as they are and he even lends Doc a stamp, that first time Doc fixes to mail something down South. A clipping from the Phoenix Star, of Lightning looking truly happy.

When Lightning brings Smokey to town, so many, many years from then, Sheriff knows him instantly.

"Boy, you've got stories," he says to Smokey slyly, owner of the best dang garage in the Carolinas, runner of moonshine, not-quite lover to a girl named Tea.

He says, "He was real proud of you, you know. Who you were to him, what you had. Even if he wasn't so good at showing it, 'til the end."

"That was always Hud's way," says Smokey, and Sheriff agrees, though the name's never stuck with him. His Doc will always be Doc.

In the distance, Lightning and Cruz are still running up dust, their shouting echoing off the buttes and canyons and filling the valley. They keep it up, the entire county's gonna know what's in their hearts, if it doesn't already.

"You thirsty?" Smokey asks.

"I know a good place," says Sheriff, "If you're fixing to see some stars."


End file.
